I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
miserable existence.
On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
treated me well.
Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding.
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